textile design & innovations

Anti-Cancer Wearables

Wearable technology/electronics or “wearables”, as they might be called sometimes, are becoming more trendy. Many designers have used them to create all types of functional fashion. Many other researchers worked on the application of these wearables in the medical field for personal health management systems, such as; heart monitoring system, which are now widely available for athletics in many forms including belts, vests, bra … etc.

Figure (1): Optune System, (1): is the portable field generator, (2): is the transducer array, (3): System carrying bag.

Optune creates an alternating wave-like electric fields called Tumor Treating Fields, TTFields. These field travel across the upper part of the brain in different directions to help slow or stop recurrent glioblastoma cancer cells from dividing and do not harm healthy cells.

Data showed that the use of this method with other treatment increased the patient survival years. The transducer arrays are placed directly on the scalp to target the tumor and it is based on each patient’s MRI results to maximize the therapy’s effect on the tumor, Figure 2.

Figure (2): Transducer arrays on a patient while living a normal day.

This month, the WIPO has published a patent called the Nanoparticle Phoresis for Google. In this patent a wearable device will detect functionalized nano particles in the blood that able to identify and get stuck to harmful cells. The nano particles then will destroy the cells by the use of the magnetic field generated by the wearable device.

Figure (3): The wearable anti cancer device patent by Google

Textiles already plays a major role in the medical field and with the technological advances in electronics and other fields, textiles as wearables will be used in more in this vital application.